{"id":61979,"date":"2025-08-12T07:28:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-12T07:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/61979\/"},"modified":"2025-08-12T07:28:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-12T07:28:09","slug":"tech-giants-apple-and-google-lose-landmark-court-case-as-federal-judge-rules-they-engaged-in-anti-competitive-conduct","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/61979\/","title":{"rendered":"Tech giants Apple and Google lose landmark court case as federal judge rules they engaged in anti-competitive conduct"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">In a landmark decision, the federal court has today ruled against tech giants Apple and Google in a major win for consumers, finding that the companies engaged in anti-competitive conduct.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">Judge Jonathan Beach found that both companies had broken the law by misusing their market power in the way they run their app stores which sell everything from smartphone apps to computer games.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">It clears the way for two class actions covering millions of Australian consumers and developers to pursue substantial compensation for the price and commissions they paid for digital content \u2014 which according to legal representatives for the class actions were heavily inflated on the app stores.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">Justice Beach also ruled on two cases brought by Epic Games, the developer of blockbuster online game Fortnite.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"An image from the videogame Fortnite: Battle Royale with a man jumping away from an explosion\" class=\"Image_image__5tFYM ContentImage_image__DQ_cq\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/c55be769b8da66246793132e6767af48\" loading=\"lazy\" data-component=\"Image\" data-lazy=\"true\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"Typography_base__sj2RP FigureCaption_text__zDxQ5 Typography_sizeMobile12__w_FPC Typography_lineHeightMobile20___U7Vr Typography_regular__WeIG6 Typography_colourInherit__dfnUx\" data-component=\"Typography\">Justice Beach also ruled on two cases brought by Epic Games, the developer of blockbuster online game Fortnite. (Epic Games)<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">He found Google and Apple breached section 46 of the competition and consumer act by misusing their market power to reduce competition but he rejected other allegations including that the companies had engaged in unconscionable conduct \u2014 behaviour so harsh it goes against good conscience.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph__iYReA\">Advocates believe the judgment could have a significant impact on how digital platforms operate in Australia.<\/p>\n<p>Loading<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a landmark decision, the federal court has today ruled against tech giants Apple and Google in a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61980,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[6384,22045,1337,64,63,99,36423,1783,49955,70,15737,113,105],"class_list":["post-61979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-android","tag-app-store","tag-apple","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-class-action","tag-compensation","tag-epic-games","tag-federal-court","tag-fortnite","tag-google","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61979\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}